Lola – the first week

24Nov

It has now been a full week since I got my dog Lola. And what a week it has been! I thought I’d give the over all report on how things have changed, and boy have they ever.

Lola was really good the first two days I had her (saturday and sunday the 15th and 16th), she just slept most of those days. But starting monday she got really wild.
1 – She already knew how to sit, but that was the only manners she had. She would also race out of the door every time I opened it.
2 – She would mouth everything in sight. Me, the leash, carpet edges, my coat, my hair (yikes!) and anything else she could get her mouth on.
3 – She practically ripped my arm out of my socket when we went for a walk. Every time I would pull her back she would just lunge ahead again, choking herself in the process, which caused her to have coughing fits even when we were just sitting around.
4 – She had to go potty within an hour after she ate or drank something or she would have an accident in the house. Thankfully I noticed most of the times when she seemed like she had to go, and she only had three accidents.
5 – She would not only just jump up on me, but she would actually lunge for my face. She would also try to jump on the couch (or try to sneak a paw up on it) whenever she thought I wasn’t looking.

She was constantly doing one naughty thing or another. She seemed to have more energy then I knew what to do with. I was exasperated, and I was feeling like I would have months and months, and maybe even years, of pulling-my-hair-out frustration before I would end up with a halfway decent dog.

My cat Sebastian was spending all of his time hidingunder the covers in my bedroom. He would only come out when Lola was in her crate for the night. And then he would only walk around in my bedroom. He was constantly shaking withfear and tended to walk close to the ground.

Things have really changed in just one week!
1 – She knows that she has to sit every time I take the leash on or off, before I feed her, and when waiting to cross the street. Some times I don’t even have to ask anymore. Like when she sees the leash come out she will instantly go by the door and sit. She now walks out of the door quietly and stops to give me time to close the door before we go on.
2 – She now knows the phrase “no bites!” and she normally hesitates before trying to nip me or anything else on my person (yay!). She is getting better about not chewing on things she is not supposed to as well. She only reaches for the leash a couple times, and most of the time I can stop her with a quick “no bites!” before she even gets her mouth on it.
3 – Most of our walks are nice quiet affairs. She will still pull when she sees something like a squirrel, another dog or sometimes a car, but other then that when she starts to pull all I have to do is give the leash a little tug and tell her “no” and she will stop.
4 – She now can go with only going to the bathroom 4 times a day. 6am when I get up, 7:30am before I leave for work, 5pm when I get home, and 10pm before bed. Some times she asks to go out at around 9 something at night, but I don’t mind that.
5 – She knows the word “off!” really well. I can now tell her to get off something from across the room and she will do it about 85% of the time.

Lola is well on her way to being my “perfect” dog. She still has some issues to work on, but some of that is just being a puppy. She spent most of the weekend sleeping. And she relegated the bouncing-off-the-walls behaviour to playing outside, and stayed quiet inside. I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that tunnel is a lot shorter then I thought it was. If she continues at this rate I will have a perfectly behaved dog by the end of the year!

Sebastian is now getting back to his normal behaviour. He still stays in the bedroom and bathroom while Lola is out, but he is no longer hiding under the covers. He and Lola have even gone nose to nose a couple times! I’m keeping their meeting sessions short and sweet, and I make sure to end them before Sebastian tries to run or Lola gets hyper-excited. I even have evidence that he is going into the kitchen during the night. He has this annoying habit of opening the kitchen cabinet doors and I have found them open several days now. Which means that he has to walk past Lola to get into the kitchen.
I don’t necessarily need them to be best buds, but I would like Sebastian go get comfortable enough with Lola so that he can come out when she is around.

So as you can tell we have had lots of progress in the past week.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that things just keep getting better from here!

I’m WillowMoon

You've come to my little corner of the internet. I'm a tree-hugging, nature loving pagan living in the northern midwest. I do a lot of reading and I love to curl up in front of my TV to watch my favorite shows. I also am a bit of a geek, so you'll see a bit of internet-related stuff here as well.
But mostly I'm just a girl that's trying to find her way in life.
~Blessed Be~